Means for applying slate granules to shingles



Aug. 20, 1963 w. M. BOWEN m MEANS FOR APPLYING SLATE GRANULES TO SHINGLES 6 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Oct. 27, 1960 INVENTOR m ATTORN EYS Aug. 20, 1963 w. M. BOWEN Ill 3,101,281

MEANS FOR APPLYING SLATE GRANULES T0 SHINGLES Filed Oct. 27, 1960 6 Sheets-Sheet 2 IVENTOR BY Q4 '1 @Z uw ATTORNEYS Aug. 20, 1963 w. M. BOWEN 1" 3,101,281

MEANS FOR APPLYING SLATE GRANULES T0 SHINGLES Filed Oct. 27, 1960 6 Sheets-Sheet 5 WM A TORNEYS Aug. 20, 1963 W.-M. BOWEN m MEANS FOR APPLYING SLATE GRANULES TO SHINGLES 6 Sheets-Sheet 4 Filed 001;. 27, 1960 hf INVENT% BY M ATTORN EYS Aug. 20, 1963 w. M. BOWEN 111 3,101,281

MEANS FOR APPLYING SLATE GRANULES T0 SHINGLES Filed Oct. 27, 1960 I e Sheets-Sheet 5 I 1 I l I I I 1 fig. 5.

INVENTOR 20 20 ATTORNEYS 1963 w. M. BOWEN 1n I 3,101,281

. MEANS FOR'APPLYING SLATE GRANULES TO SHINGLES Filed Oct. 27, 1960 I e Shee ts-Sheet s BY m ATTORNEYS 3,101 ,281 Patented Aug. 20, 1963.

3,101,281 MEANS FOR APPLYING SLATE GRANULES T SHINGLES William M. Bowen III, Paoli, Pa., assignor to Certain-teed Products Corporation, Ardmore, Pa-, a corporation of I Maryland Filed Oct. 27, 1960, Ser. No. 65,371 7 Claims. (Cl. 118--7) ,This invention relates to the art of applying granular material to a moving strip or web of flat material and is exemplified by the manufacture of shingles where slate granules are applied to a moving strip of the shingle material for the purpose of providing the surface with a desired blend of colors, texture, and general appearance. In fact, the present invention has been developed in connection with the art of manufacturing shingles and the accompanying disclosure will be directed to that particular field of usefulness.

For many years the shingle manufacturing industry has provided shingles with a desired surface texture or appearance by dropping on a moving strip or web of the shingle material slate granules of various colors designed to yield a harmonious blend of color values and texture when the finished shingles are subsequently applied to the surface or roof which they are to cover. As a general rule, it has been the practice to place the slate granules in a series of compartments or hoppers from which they are fed to the moving sheet in desired sequence in a series of plops in such a manner that, when viewing the finished product on a roof or other surface, the net effect is one of a harmonious and pleasing arrangement of color values.

Before stating the particular objects of the invention it should be understood that, in the manufacture of shingles, machines are employed which can be run at diiferent speeds depending upon the type of product or shingle being produced at the time. For instance, in certain operations a machine speed is employed which will produce say about -00 factory squares per hour, i.e., 108 sq. ft. of material having a width of 3 ft. and a length of approximately 36 ft. However, different machine speeds are often employed, as is well known to those skilled in the art, and I might cite in this connection speeds which produce approximately as high as 800 factory squares per hour as another typical example or something in between.

By Way of illustration it will be assumed that a set of 6 slate hoppers are to be employed and that these hoppers will discharge granules onto the moving strip of shingle material in a sequence which makes a complete cycle for a given length of the shingle material. Two very typical cycles involve 144 of sheet material or 216 of sheet material-this, of course, being dependent upon the character of the product being run in accordance with well established shingle manufacturing techniques.

Changes in speed of operation of the shingle machine introduce problems with respect to the application of granules and the principal object of my invention is to maintain uniformity in the appearance of the finished product at various machine speeds. As will further appear my invention makes it possible to maintain such uniformity in appearance even though the speed of the machine is altered from time to time to suit various manufacturing conditions, type of product being run at the moment and the character of the shingle packaging technique which may be desired for the particular product being made.

Before proceeding with a detailed description of my invention I should like to point out that the art refers to machines of the type under consideration as slate blenders and heretofore various types of blenders have been employed, but all of them with which I am familiar have failed to produce uniformity of appearance in the finished product because they did not provide adequate means for adjusting the quantity of slate being delivered to the moving strip of shingle material when the speed of the strip was altered. In this connection it will be understood, of course, that the slate blender is tied in with the speed of operation of the shingle machine per se and this has resulted in less of the slate granules being delivered to the strip at high speeds than at low speeds. This produces an effect which lacks sharpness in color values so that the finished product appears somewhat Washed out when the machine is being operated at relatively high speeds as compared to the appearance produced when the machine is being run at relatively low speeds. 1

With all of the foregoing in mind, I have discovered that uniformity of results can be secured byemploying gates of a special type for controlling the discharge openings of the hoppers which contain the slate granules. These are designed and operated so that more granules are discharged when the machine is operating at high speeds than when the machine is operating at relatively low speeds. V

The objects and advantages of the invention will be better understood by referring to the accompanying drawings, wherein FIGURE 1 is a sectional elevation illustrating the principal parts of my improved blending machine, the section being taken as indicated by the line 1-1 on FIG- URE 2;

FIGURE 2 is a plan view of FIGURE 1; FIGURE 3 is a partial section on an enlarged scale taken as indicated by the line 33 on FIGURE 4;

FIGURE 4 is a sectienal view taken on the line 44 of FIGURE 3; y

. FIGURE 5 is a sectional view taken on the line 5-5 of FIGURE 2 to illustrate the nature of the cover-up hopper which may be employed with my invention;

FIGURE 6 is a section taken on the line "6--6 of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 7 is a plan view of a strip of shingle material showing a certain type of color blend which can be laid on the moving shingle strip with .the'machine as I have illustrated it in the previous figures; and

FIGURE 8 is a'plan view of a shingle strip involving a different arrangement of color blends which can be secured by proper adjustment of the machine which I have developed.

' I should like to say that the illustrations of FIGURES 7 and 8 are merely by way of example. of possible arrangements of color blends which can be secured with my machine and should in no way be considered as limiting. I will now describe the preferred embodiment of my machine as illustrated in the accompanying drawings, from FIGURES 1 and 2 of which it will be seen that I have illustrated a sheet or web of shingle material 10 as coming in from the left and movingto the right, which sheet first passes around the large roller 11 to a point 1 near the top where it passes under a smaller roller 12 and then upwardly around this latter' roller to leave the machine as indicated by the arrow at the point 13. The details of the shingle machine per se are not shown because they are very familiar to those skilled in this art and,

shingle material at the bottom of the machine as indicated in FIGURE 1 where the strip has a horizontal run between the framework supports 14 and 15.

Serially arranged above the horizontal run of the sheet is a series of hoppers for the slate granules. These hoppers are identified by the Roman numerals I to VI, inclusive, with I being at the left as viewed in FIGURES 1 and 2 and the succeedingnumbers appearing in order toward the right. The hoppers are supported by suitable structural members which will not be described in detail since they can be designed in any preferred manner just so long as the hoppers are supported at a convenient elevation above the moving strip 10. Ihe hoppers are identical in construction so that the following description of one will apply to all and in this connection reference can also be had to FIGURES 3 and 4 as well as to FIG- URES land 2.

Each hopper is long enough to extend across the width of the moving sheet of material which, in the present instance, will be assumed to be 3 ft. because this is probably the most common width employed in the manufacture of shingles. Each hopper has a forward vertical wall 16 and a rear vertical wall 17 and each is open at the top so that it can easily be filled with the slate granules. The bottom of each hopper has an inclined floor plate 18 which extends downwardly and forwardly toward the plane of the front wall 16. However, the front wall 16 terminates at the point 19 which is somewhat above the lower portion 20 of the inclined floor plate as shown to best advantage in FIGURE 3. This construction defines a granule discharge opening which is controlled by a gate 21. Both the discharge opening and the gate extend along the entire length of the hopper.

Each hopper may be divided into a plurality of individual compartments by means of vertically arranged divider plates 22 which can be suspended from the top in any convenient manner as by a supporting plate 23 carried by a pair of supporting bars 24 which extend lengthwise along the top of each hopper, said bars being carried at their ends by suitable upstanding arms 25. The divider plates 22 can be slid along the bars 24 so as to subdivide the length of the hopper into any desired number of individual granule compartments as clearly shown, for example, in FIGURE 2 where four plates 22 are illustrated. These plates create five separate compartments along the length of each hopper but in the example of FIGURE 2 only two compartments 26 and 27 are shown as being filled with slate granules. However, it will be understood that other compartments may also be filled if desired. In fact, any desired arrangement of compartments filled with granules can be provided for as will be readily understood. 1

The gate member 21 of each compartment has an arcuate closing face 28 which is adapted to cooperate with the correspondingly arcuate formation of the lower end of each divider plate 22, as shown to best advantage in FIGURE 3. The gate member is mounted upon a supporting web plate 29 clamped between opposed gripping members 30 which gripping members project laterally to form a pivoting portion 31 which latter is supported in a trunnion 32. (See FIGURE 4.) At the opposite end each supporting web plate 29 is concentrically pivoted as at 33 so that the gate can swing on a radius of the are 28 around the pivots 31 and 33.

At this point attention is called to the fact that the armate face 28 of the gate occupies a position entirely outside the path of fio w of the discharging granules when the gate is in open position as shown in full lines in FIGURE,

3 and that it will occupy the dot and dash line position shown in this same figure when it is swung downwardly to fully closed position. Furthermore, it will also be noted that whenever the gate moves from open to closed position it does not cut at right angles directly acnoss the downwardly flowing granules but rather has a component of motion which is downward at the same time that it moves across the lines of flow to close the opening. This characteristic of the gate construction as a whole isimv portant because it helps to prevent arcing of the material and cylinder device 34 the upper end 35 of which is pivotally carried in the supporting jaws 36. The lower end of the piston 37 is connected to one arm 38 of a bell crank fixed to the pivot portion 31 of the gate supporting mechanism. The other arm 3% of the bell crank has an abutment member 40 which is adapted to take against a stop member 41. When the gate is in closed position the bell crank arms 38 and 39 occupy the dot and dash line posi tion shown in FIGURE 3 whereas when the gate is in fully open position the bell crank arms '38 and 39 occupy the dotted line and full line position shovm in this same figure. Each stop member has a threaded shank 42 which is screwed into a supporting arm 43 which projects laterally from a stop shifting rod 44.

The stop shifting rod 44 extends past all of the hoppers at one end thereof and it carries, for the gate of each hopper, a similar stop member 41 as clearly indicated in FIGURE 1. The rod is mounted to move longitudinally of its axis in order to adjust the stops 41 either closer to or farther away from the arms 39 of the bell cranks and thereby control the degree of gate opening which can be secured when the gate actuating motor 34 is brought into operation. At its left hand end as viewed in FIGURES l to 3 the rod 44 is provided with a clevis 45 which embraces a cam plate 46 there being a pin 47 between the ears of the clevis whichpin rides in the cam slot 48 of the cam plate as shown to best advantage in FIGURES 1 and 3. For the end of the shifter rod 44 which is remote from the cam plate 46 there is provided a bearing block 49. (See FIGURE 4.)

Each cylinder and piston device is provided at the top with a suitable solenoid valve operating mechanism 50. This valve mechanism can be electrically operated in the sequence required to drop the desired pl-ops as will further appear.

The cam plate 46 which moves the stop bar back and forth, as already described, in order to adjust the position of the stop members 41, is raised and lowered by means of a special air pressure actuated motor device 51 which in this instance is known as a Conofiow positioner and is manufactured by the Conoflow Corporation of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is not necessary to describe or illustrate the details of construction of this motor device but it should be explained that its stem or piston rod 52 moves upwardly or downwardly depending upon pressure conditions in the unit 51. For the purpose of the present invention this unit is set to function bet-ween 3 and 15 p.s.i. with the rod 52 being fully retracted as shown in FIGURES l and 3 at 15 p.s.i. whereas at 3 p.s.i. this stem '52 will be extended to its extreme lower position-the degree of vertical movement between the two extremes being approximately 4 inches in the present instance.

The air pressure for operating the motor device 51-52 comes in through the line 53 and this may vary depending upon the supply available in the particular plant. However, it should be considerably higher than any pressure required for operation of the blender and, for the sake of example only, it will be assumed that the pressure coming in through the line 53 is received at approximately lbs. This pressure, however, is reduced by'the pressure regulator 54 to appmoximately 40 p.s.i. After passing the pressure regulating valve 54 the pressure reaches the recording device 55 which is subject to the control of a tachometer 56 which tachometer, in turn, is responsive to the speed of the shingle manufacturing mach-ine and, therefore, to the speed of the moving strip.

The recorder 55 represents a piece of equipment which is well known to those skilled in the art and it is set to deliver an air signal which varies between 3 and 15 p.s.i.

This, of course, could be altered if necessary or desirable but for the sake of the present disclosure it will be assumed that the recorder will deliver a signal which varies between 3 and 15 psi depending'upon the control of the tachometer '56 which in turn is responsive to the speed of the machine.

The operating pressure which passes the pressure regulator 54 is delivered to the motor mechanism 5152 and is there subject to the control of two additional pressure regulators 57 and 58, which cooperate with the mechanism within the motor 51 to produce motion of the stem 52 upwardly or downwardly as already described in direct response to the recorder variations between 3 and 15 p.s.1.

The solenoid valve mechanisms 50 are actuated by the switches a, b, c, d, e and 1 under the control of cooperating cams a to f inclusive located within the cam box 59 which runs along the side of the machine adjacent the,

ends of the hoppers as shown in FIGURE 2. The lobes on the cams are arranged to close the valves a to inelusive in any desired sequence, such for example as that which is shown in FIGURE 6 in which figure the cams for the respective gates of the hoppers I to VI inclusive are indicated with the same Roman numerals. The cam shaft 60 is suitably driven in any desired manner as by the gearing 61, clutch 62 and worm drive 63, the latter receiving the power through a suitable chain drive 64. The details of this driving mechanism are not important because they can take various terms depend ing upon the design of the machine. Suffice it to say that the earns a to f inclusive are formed and located so as to actuate the switches a to f inclusive in the sequence in which it is desired to open'the valves 21 of the respective hoppers I to VI inclusive. Naturally, this can be varied to a great extent depending upon the visual effect which it is desired to impress upon the finished shingles.

FIGURE 6 illustrates the carnlobes which operate the several valves a to f inclusive and in this figure the re spective lobes have been shaded to indicate certain colors, as follows: Cam I-'horizontal shading for blue; cam- 11-- vertical shading for red; cam IIInortheast/southwest diagonal shading for brown; cam IVnorthwest/southeast diagonal shading for green; cam V--plus shading for yellow; and cam VInet shading for black. (Incidentally, the shading on the lobes of these cams as just set forth corresponds to the shading shown in FIGURE 7, which is a plan view of an 18' cycle of the moving strip, the direction of travel being from left to right. The cams rotate counterclockwise as viewed in FIGURE 6 and the lobes close the switches'in the following orderI, VI, V, III, II, VI, IV, I, III and VI together, IV, II, and then I of the next cycle. The lobes have a 20 dwell so that a switch is held open for 20 of travel of the cam and in each 20 of rotation of the cams the sheet travels 12" and in one complete revolution of the cams the sheet travels 18'.

For the type of shingles illustrated in 'FGURE 7 the colors will be laid in the order shown in this figure. This order apparently is not in agreement with the color order of the lobes in FIGURE 6. However, the two showings are correct because it must be remembered that hoppers I to VI are spaced apart longitudinally of the moving sheet and, therefore, lobe I lays a blue pl-op at No. I hopper and lobe VI lays a black plop at N 0. VI hopper, etc.

It will be noticed in FIGURE 2 that the cam box 59 also includes another complete set of operating cams and switches. However, the gear drive 61ahas a 1:1 ratio instead of the 1.521 ratio of the gearing 61. Either side of the cam box can be used tor operating the gates depending upon the work in hand. For example, with the 1.5 :1 ratio of the right hand side the cam shaft makes one revolution for every 18 of sheet travel and this cycle is illustrated diagrammatically in FIGURE Twhere th shingle sheet 10 includes six groups of three shingles with the shingles in each 'group being 36"long. desired to change the cycle the 1:1 gear ratio of the left hand side of the cam box is brought into play so that the left hand shaft makes one complete revolution for each 12 of sheet travel with the same input shaft driving both of the cam shafts as illustrated-there being a corresponding clutch 62a when it is desired to use the lefthand set of cams and switches.

With the set-up which produces the shingle strip of FIGURE 8 two different colors are used in each hopper and these are alternated, namely blue-red-blue-red beginning at the bottom of the figure. This applies to the plops delivered by hopper I as indicated at the right hand end of FIGURE 8. In the next succeeding position marked V the colors employed, beginning at the bottom, are vcllow=brown-yellow-brown. It will be understood, of course, that each hopper may be divided into whatever color groups may be preferred or desired for the product to be produced and what I have illustrated in both FIG URES 7 and 8 represents merely. illustrative examples.

A final feature of the machine will now be described and this involves the provision of what is termed a coverup hopper 65. This cover up hopper is of slightly different construction than the hoppers I to VI and comprises a front sloping wall 66 and a rear sloping wall 67 which approach each other toward the bottom but which do not meet so as to leave an opening through which the slate granules may be discharged. An adjustable plate mem ber 68 can be moved to increase or decrease the width,

of the discharge opening between the granule feed roller .69 and the bottom of the plate. The roller turns clock-.

wise and feeds slate out of the hopper and dumps it down onto the sheet. The sliding'plate 68 is actuated by a rack and pinion mechanism 70, the pinion of which can be oscillated back and forth by means of another air motor device 71 which is similar in every respect to the previously described air motor '51 with the exception that its stem 72 has only a 3" stroke instead of a 4 stroke and is coupled in such a way that at 15 p.s.i. the stem is fully extended to the position shown in FIGURES 1 and 2 whereas at 3 p.s.i. it is fully retracted, namely to the position opposite to that shown in the drawings. Of course, it is to be understood that in the case of this mo tor as well as in the case of the motor 51-52 various positions of the parts may be assumed in between the two extremes depending upon variations in pressure between the 3 to 1 5 p.s.i. limits for which they are set. The'moto-r device 71 receives the operating pressure from the recorder 55 under the modifying control of additional pressure regulators 73 and 74 which cooperate with the motor in the manner already described for the motor 51 except for the fact that the stem -72 is fully retracted at 3 p.s.i. and fully ext-ended at 15 p.s.i.

The principle of a cover-up hopper is well known to the art and since it forms no specific part of the present invention it will not be described in greater detail.

Insofar as the cam slot 48 in the cam plate 46 is con c'erned, I wish to point out that the degree to which the stops on the shifter rod 44 are moved and, therefore, the degree to which the hopper gates are opened was determined empirically. For instance, a machine built according to the disclosure of this application was run at a series of speeds between approximately 200 factory squares an hour and 800 factory squares an hour. The quantity of slate discharged from a hopper tor, let us say 10 plops of the same size, was collected and measured. The stop for controlling the opening of the gate was adjusted for If it is 7 each machine speed to the point where the gate would open to that degree which was necessary to deliver the same quantity of slate for each speed. The slot 48 was formed according to the findings so resulting.

The reason for proceeding in Way was because the slate granules have a finite size-let us assume for example a finite size of approximately With a gate opening of approximately A" let us assume that X amount of slate granules will flow from the gate. However, an amount greater than 2.x will flow through the gate with an opening of A2" and for this reason the slope of the slot 48 in the cam bar is plotted to compensate for this fact. In other words, the stop bar will not be moved to a position which will allow the gates to open to the full width.

Another factor involved is the speed of the machine. Since the gates are opened and closed in direct relation to the sp'eed'of the machine it is obvious that at a machine speed of say 200 squames per hour the gate will be open for twice as long a period as at a machine speed of 400 fiactory squares per hour. Therefore, to deposit the same amount of slate granules per plop the gate has to be wider open at high speed than at low speed but not necessarily twice as wide.

Since this situation exists because the slate granules must have some finite size, it is obvious that when the gate is opened just enough to permit passage of the granules the flow will be relatively slow but as the gate opening becomes wider [and wider this factor becomes less and less important so that the degree of gate opening cannot be plotted as a straight line between the width of the gate opening and the speed of the machine.

The curve of the slot 48 shown in the present application was determined empirically along the lines just discussed, the important factor being that the quantity of slate per plop of a given size should always be approximately the same regardless of machine speed in order to preserve uniformity of appearance in the finished product.

1 claim:

1. In a machine for dropping slate granules on a moving strip of shingle material wherein the speed of the moving strip may vary, the combination of a supply hopper for the granules, a hopper opening adapted to discharge granules onto the moving strip, a gate adjustable to control the degree of opening whereby to vary the quantity of granules discharged per unit of time, and means responsive to changes in the speed of strip movement and adapted to increase the degree of gate opening as strip speed increases and vice versa, the. degree of gate opening being such as to permit discharge of approximately the same quantity of the slate granules per unit of strip length regardless of the speed of strip movement.

2. A machine according to claim 1 wherein the gate has an mcuate vface controlling the discharge opening and is mounted to swing on a radius of said arc.

3. A machine according to claim 1 wherein the hopperare whereby it can swing from a fully opened position adjacent said wall to a tully closed position adjacent said sloping floor.

4. In a machine for dropping slate granules on a moving strip of shingle material wherein the speed of the mov-- ing strip may vary, the combination of a supply hopper for the granules, :a hopper opening adapted to discharge granules onto the moving strip, a gate controlling the opening, adjustable means for limiting opening movement of the gate whereby to vary the quantity of granules which can be discharged per unit of time, a tachometer nesponsive to changes in the speed of strip movement, and means under the control of the tachometer for effecting adjustment of the gate opening limiting means to increase the degree of gate opening as strip speed increases and vice versa, the degree of gate opening being such as to permit discharge of approximately the same quantity of the slate granules per unit of strip length regardless of the speed of strip movement.

5. A machine for applying slate granules to a moving strip of shingle material comprising a supply hopper for the granules, a hopper opening adapted to discharge gnanules onto the moving strip, a gate controlling said opening, an adjustable stop for controlling the degree of gate opening, means responsive to changes in the speed of strip movement adapted to adjust the position of the stop in relation to the speed, and means for opening the gate to the degree permitted by the position of said stop, the degree of gate opening being such as to permit discharge of approximately the same quantity of the slate granules per unit of strip length regardless of the speed of strip movement.

6. A machine for applying granules to a moving strip of slnngle material comprising a plurality of supply hoppers for granules of different colors, said hoppers being arranged along the path of the moving strip, an opening in each hopper adapted to discharge granules onto the moving strip, a gate controlling each opening, means for opening each gate in a desired sequence, a stop bar, said bar being axially adjustable along the hoppers, a stop for each gate carried by the bar, said stops being adapted to cooperate with the gate opening means to limit the degree of gate opening, and means responsive to the speed of strip movement for moving said bar to adjust the position of said stops and thereby to alter the degree of gate opening in relation to strip speed, the degree of gate opening being such as to permit discharge of approximately the same quantity of the slate lgranules per unit of stnip length regardless of the speed of strip movement;

7. A machine according to claim 6 wherein a cam is provided for effecting the movement of the stop bar in response to the speed of strip movement.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,484,760 Cumfer Feb. 26, 1924 2,074,147. Holdsworth Mar. 16, 1937 2,917,207 Prowse et a1. Dec. 15, 1959 2,981,638 Jones Apr. 25, 1961 

5. A MACHINE FOR APPLYING SLATE GRANULES TO A MOVING STRIP OF SHINGLE MATERIAL COMPRISING A SUPPLY HOPPER FOR THE GRANULES, A HOPPER OPENING ADAPED TO DISCHARGE GRANULES ONTO THE MOVING STRIP, A GATE CONTROLLING SAID OPENING, AN ADJUSTABLE STOP FOR CONTROLLING THE DEGREE OF GATE OPENING, MEANS RESPONSIVE TO CHANGES IN THE SPEED OF STRIP MOVEMENT ADAPTED TO ADJUST THE POSITION OF THE STOP IN RELATION TO THE SPEED, AND MEANS FOR OPENING THE GATE TO THE DEGREE PERMITTED BY THE POSITION OF SAID STOP, THE DEGREE OF GATE OPENING BEING SUCH AS TO POINT DISCHARGE OF APPROXIMATELY THE SAME QUANTITY OF THE SLATE GRANULES 